


Prime

by inkand_paper (Fabuest)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: (the answer to that question is Optimus), (well consenting for Magnus' molestations anyway), (who really wants to be molested by Megatron amirite), Alternate Universe - Crack, Lion King mashup, M/M, but technically he's a consenting adult, if a little inexperienced, in which Hot Rod is only a few hours old before Megatron and Ultra Magnus start molesting him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 10:23:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabuest/pseuds/inkand_paper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the time he comes online, there's something different about Hot Rod. Ultra Magnus knows exactly what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raisedbymoogles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisedbymoogles/gifts).



> This is very, very AU. It's also pure crack.

The large blue and white mech was staring at him. Hot Rod had entered the chamber of the Prime along with his batch mates, one cycle after they all were activated, which his databanks informed him was traditional. There they saw three mechs standing above them on a raised dais. His databanks had information on two of them - there was Optimus Prime, who stood proud and tall at the forefront, his optics sweeping over the assembly of newly sparked mechs, and at the Prime's left stood Megatron, his Lord High Protector, even taller and impressive in an entirely different way, all confident posture and fierce gaze and huge fusion cannon gleaming in the soft orange lighting. And standing to the left of and just behind the Lord High Protector was the blue and white mech, looking as regal as the Prime and as strong as Megatron, but less confident of his place than either of them, and he was staring at Hot Rod.

Optimus Prime was speaking, welcoming them to Cybertron and to life, but all Hot Rod's attention was on the blue and white mech whose huge optics were locked onto him, intense and... and something else, something he couldn't define. The Prime's speech finished, and Megatron spoke a few words as well, and then the new mechs moved forward, one at a time, to speak individually with the Prime and his Lord High Protector, the only time most mechs could expect the chance to meet the leaders of their race. Through it all, he could feel the blue and white mech watching him, watching and waiting.

A smaller hand gripped his, and he looked to see Arcee, the only femme of their group, standing beside him. She smiled at him, then looked up at the dais, optics shining with admiration. "Aren't they glorious?" she whispered.

Hot Rod had to agree. Optimus Prime and Megatron were beautiful, self assured, powerful and competent. "Do you know who that is?" he asked, flicking his optics toward the blue and white mech. "My databanks have no information on him."

Arcee shook her head. "Mine, either."

He frowned, disappointed, but then the Prime's optics landed on him and he knew, with a strange certainty, that it was his turn to move forward. He squeezed Arcee's hand once, then pulled away, walking forward to the dais.

"Optic catching, aren't you?" Megatron rumbled, reaching to touch the flame design on Hot Rod's chest with one large hand, huge blunt fingers scraping at the bright yellow paint in a movement which was not rough, but not gentle either. "And small. You'll have no place in the military."

"But there are plenty of other ways for a young mech to make a living," the Prime interrupted. "What is your name, new spark?"

"Hot Rod," Hot Rod said, glaring defiantly up at Megatron. Just for that, maybe he would try his luck with the military. Why should his size matter?

"A fitting designation," Megatron said with a slight smirk and a nod. His hand traced up Hot Rod's shoulder to the spoiler mounted high on his back. "Perhaps you will do well as a racer. You would be popular."

"Whatever you choose to do, Hot Rod, I have little doubt that you will be successful in your path. Although," Optimus Prime added, optics shining with something strangely like mischief, "I wonder if there is not perhaps something very large in store for you. Ultra Magnus?"

Until that moment, Hot Rod had nearly forgotten about the blue and white mech behind Megatron, his view of him blocked by the Lord High Protector's massive frame and presence. Megatron pulled his hand back and looked toward the blue mech then, though, and suddenly there was nothing between the two of them but a mechanometer or two of empty space. The mech's frame was tight, and his optics lingered on Hot Rod's chest and spoiler where Megatron had touched him, before looking up to meet his gaze. He nodded once, and looked to Optimus. "My Prime."

 

Hot Rod lounged in a conference room, leaning back in his chair with his feet kicked up on the table as he waited. For what, he didn't know; he'd been separated from the group of mechs he was onlined with and brought here with no explanation, though he had at least been given a cube of energon to drink. And the chemical analyzers lining his oral cavity and intake tube had informed him that it was good, high quality energon, silky smooth in texture and with a slight viscosity that left his intakes tingling pleasantly with a light coating of the energizing liquid.

He was bored now, though. The room contained nothing interesting; he had occupied himself for the first two breem by examining each chair around the table in detail in order to determine which would be most comfortable to sit in. As it turned out, they were all pretty much identical. He'd flopped down in this one at random, then watched his chronometer as the millibreems ticked by. Time had passed in increasingly larger intervals: breems and then cycles and then groons, until finally an entire joor had passed and though his chronometer assured him that a joor was not a very long time at all, he was starting to feel like he'd been forgotten.

And that was when the door slid open, and the large blue and white mech from the Chamber of the Prime stepped in, followed by Optimus Prime, a pink femme who looked nothing at all like Arcee, and a black and white mech with sensor panels on his back and a red chevron on his helm.

"Hot Rod," Optimus Prime greeted. "I trust the shift finds you well?"

"Slagging bored, actually," Hot Rod griped. "Who's all this?"

The chevroned mech frowned in obvious disapproval. "Optimus, are you really quite certain-"

"Perhaps you would do better to direct your concern toward Ultra Magnus," the femme interrupted. "You must be aware that the final decision goes to him, and not to Optimus."

The blue and white mech shifted uncomfortably, and the Prime placed a steadying hand on his elbow. "As I understand it, the process involves less of a choice, and more of a confirmation," he said. "Hot Rod, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Elita One, a close friend and personal advisor to me, and the head of the New Sparks Caretaker Division; Prowl, another friend and advisor, and Chief Administrator to the Senate; and Lord Protector Ultra Magnus, whom you have already met."

"Lord Protector? I thought there was only one of those."

The Prime chuckled. "Lord Megatron is the only Lord High Protector of Cybertron, that is true. Ultra Magnus, as Lord Protector and current head of the Iacon division of the Cybertron military, is Megatron's chosen successor to the position of Lord High Protector when the time comes for my brother and I to retire from leadership."

"If we could continue with the proceedings?" prompted the chevroned mech - Prowl - impatiently.

"Of course, Prowl. Ultra Magnus, please, do as you must." Optimus Prime's hand fell away from Ultra Magnus' elbow, and he stepped back from the Lord Protector, whose optics had fixed again on Hot Rod.

"Okay," Hot Rod said, scrambling up and back as Ultra Magnus moved forward to loom over him, "what's happening right now?"

Nobody else spoke. Hot Rod continued to give ground to Ultra Magnus until his back was to the wall, and the Lord Protector's hand extended to press against his chest and pin him there. The closeness of the larger mech had his internal temperature rising and fans spinning in a way that hadn't happened when Megatron was in nearly the same position, and when Ultra Magnus' hand traced the exact same path up to his spoiler as Megatron's had done, the sensation brought with it a bloom of heat that had _definitely_ not happened before.

"Maybe," he gasped, "just... an explanation? Of what's going on?"

"Hot Rod," Ultra Magnus said, in a tone that was commanding and just as intense as his stare had been in the Chamber of the Prime. "Do not move."

"Right." Hot Rod remained against the wall as Ultra Magnus' hand left him, optics flicking between the Lord Protector and the other three in the room, standing as silent witnesses to whatever was happening here. "Not really sure where else I'd go."

Ultra Magnus opened the lid of a small container that he hadn't been holding a moment before (he must have pulled it from subspace, Hot Rod's databanks supplied) and dipped two fingers into it, scooping out a small glob of thick white paste. The paste was cool to the touch, a striking contrast to Hot Rod's heated plating when Ultra Magnus used it to paint a rough glyph on his chest, a horizontally stretched decagon with a circle in the center. Hot Rod's vents and processor stuttered, and he wasn't sure if he didn't recognize the glyph because it wasn't in his databanks or because he just couldn't reach his databanks.

When he brought his optics back online - and when had he shut those off? - Ultra Magnus was watching him expectantly. And he had no idea what he was supposed to do. How _could_ he know, when they still hadn't explained what was happening?

"I don't know," he admitted, as if it was some terrible secret. "I don't know what you want."

The flash of disappointment that crossed Ultra Magnus' face when he pulled away from Hot Rod _hurt_ , somewhere deep in his spark, in a way that he hadn't even known was possible until he felt it. It didn't make sense - he hadn't known Ultra Magnus for longer than a cycle, hadn't even been online for longer than a joor and a half, but he knew with certainty that the only thing worse than ever seeing that disappointment again was never seeing Ultra Magnus again at all, and if he didn't do something - _anything_ \- and fast, that was what was going to happen.

The click of unlatching armour was loud in the quiet room, and Ultra Magnus found the source of it even before Hot Rod himself did, reaching out to trace the separating seam of his chest plating with reverent fingers, optics glowing bright. Hot Rod's spark chamber was spiralling open even before his chest plates had finished parting, bathing Ultra Magnus in a pale blue light.

"Do you understand?" Ultra Magnus asked. His hand hovered over Hot Rod's spark, and Hot Rod didn't know what he was supposed to understand except that his spark was reaching out for Ultra Magnus, and Ultra Magnus _wasn't reaching back_.

And maybe that was it. All he had to do was say yes, and Ultra Magnus would touch. So what if he didn't understand what it meant? It had to be enough that he wanted it, whatever it was, wanted it so _very badly_ , and there had to be something in that. Arcee wouldn't want this. Springer wouldn't. They hadn't even noticed Ultra Magnus in the Chamber of the Prime. But Hot Rod did, and it was being offered, and he was going to take it.

He didn't hesitate for even a moment. "Yes," he declared, though it came out as more of a needy whimper. "I understand, I do, just _please_..."

The Lord Protector chuckled quietly and dipped his fingers into Hot Rod's spark, a benediction. "You don't, I can see that. But you will. And that is enough for now."

Hot Rod staggered back under the wash of pure sensation, collapsing against the wall with a wail. His hands scrambled at Ultra Magnus' wrist, trapping his hand close as two fingers so much larger than Hot Rod's own swirled in a gentle pattern through the dense, pulsing light of his spark. It was only a few millibreems before Hot Rod's systems overloaded and began a slow reset. By the time he came back to full awareness, his spark chamber and chest plating had closed again, and he was held aloft in Ultra Magnus' arms.

"My Prime," the Lord Protector said, facing Optimus Prime and the others, and this time, though he was obviously speaking _to_ Optimus Prime, Hot Rod was not so sure that he was speaking _of_ him, a suspicion which was strengthened when both Prowl and Elita One bowed their heads, and the Prime offered a glad congratulations.

 

The drone's difficulty rating was set almost as low as it could go, and Megatron danced around it with an easy grace, avoiding its simple attacks with little trouble and casually landing strikes on its vulnerable areas.

"Your movements are inefficient and wasteful. At the difficulty setting you have selected, I cannot believe that you would not have been easily able to debilitate your opponent within half a breem, with minimal expenditure of energy."

Megatron punched a hand through the thin armour plating of the drone's side and tore out a bundle of wires and fluid lines, then turned to face Prowl with a snarl, ignoring the spray of coolant and hydraulic fluid and the keening of the drone as it toppled over.

"I could have, if simple debilitation had been my goal. What do you want, Prowl?"

"Optimus Prime has been looking for you; I expect he will be here shortly. It would be in your best interest to have a satisfactory explanation for your absence from Ultra Magnus' ceremony last shift. He is... displeased."

"My struts quake with terror," Megatron drawled. He glanced measuringly at Prowl's frame, then smirked. "Tell me, Prowl, do you think you would fare better than the drone?"

Prowl's doorwings stiffened. "You are well aware that I am not programmed for combat."

"Yes, but it _would_ be interesting to try." He stepped forward, one arm already swinging out to test Prowl's reflexes.

"Megatron. That is enough."

The arm stopped midswing, and Megatron turned a sharp grin on Optimus as the Prime entered the training room. "Brother. How good to see you."

Optimus glanced at the sparking, bleeding, static-spitting drone on the ground and grimaced. "Would that you would show as much enthusiasm for mentoring your protege as you do for keeping your own battle programming updated. Ultra Magnus missed you at his ceremony. He has finally found his Prime after vorns of waiting, and you were not there to approve of the mech his spark chose to call out to."

"Then let him take a lesson from the experience: Cybertron does not revolve around the spark of any one mech. I had a conference scheduled with the Seekers of Vos at the time of his ceremony; cancelling or postponing that, after having been planning for it for the past two orbit, would have severely undermined our peace talks with their nation state. _Especially_ if they were to find out that it had been cancelled in favour of a ceremony which serves no purpose but to propagate a system of governance which they despise. I will have opportunity to meet and _approve_ of the pretty little mechling soon enough. Until then, I propose that you leave me to do my job."

The training room door closed behind Megatron with a ringing finality when he left, and Optimus was left staring after him with troubled optics.

"There was a time when he would have rejoiced with us," he said wistfully to Prowl. "The vorns have changed him, hardened his spark."

"I do not calculate a strong probability for it, but perhaps the vorns will yet change him back," Prowl offered.

Optimus sighed. "Sometimes, my friend, I wonder if your optimism exceeds my own."

 

Later, once he had refuelled again and Ultra Magnus had shown him how to plug himself into the ports of a recharge station, Hot Rod watched with drowsy optics as the big mech moved around the room, gathering up an item or two from here and there. After a little while, he approached the recharge station with a few cloths in one hand, and a round, foamy pad in the other.

"Hold these for me," he said, pressing the cloths into one of Hot Rod's hands and carefully folding his fingers closed around them. Once he was sure Hot Rod wouldn't drop them (which he wouldn't, because Ultra Magnus had given them to him), he lifted the pad to Hot Rod's chest and began spreading the paste from before in small circles, following the lines of that glyph that Hot Rod still didn't understand, until the lines were wide and the paste was spread out into a thin film over Hot Rod's chest.

"What's that?" he asked, tilting his helm to watch Ultra Magnus' work.

Ultra Magnus seemed to misunderstand his question, because he answered, "Wax. To make you shiny," which wasn't really what Hot Rod had wanted to know but was helpful anyway.

"Okay," he said, as Ultra Magnus finished with the pad and made it disappear into subspace. When the big mech reached for the cloths he was still holding, Hot Rod surrendered them, and Ultra Magnus gave him a small smile and stroked his helm with what Hot Rod thought might be fondness.

"What else do you want to know?"

"Why?" Hot Rod asked.

Ultra Magnus didn't hesitate in his answer, though the question could have meant any number of things. "So that everyone who sees you will know who you are," he said.

"Who I am?"

Ultra Magnus nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Rodimus," he said slowly, as if testing the sound of the name. "My Prime."

Hot Rod shook his helm, confused. "I'm Hot Rod. The Prime's name is Optimus."

"For now." Ultra Magnus gave him another small smile, and no more explanation, then swiped his finger through the wax lining the left edge of the decagon on Hot Rod's chest. He seemed pleased by the result of that test, and used one of the cloths to wipe the wax away with smooth strokes. When that was done, he repeated the process with a second cloth, and then smoothed the wires connecting Hot Rod to the recharge station. "Power down now. You'll feel better when you come back online."

Hot Rod nodded. His optics dimmed and his systems slowed to power save mode, and Ultra Magnus watched with a peculiar expression, a complicated mix of mostly positive emotions. "Rodimus," he said again, quiet but firm, and then stepped out of the room, leaving the young mech recharging with the shape of the Matrix blazoned across his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> When I first got the idea for this fic, it was a simple mash up - plot of The Lion King, cast of Transformers. Then it started getting more and more complicated as I started thinking about motivations and politics, until it got a little too intimidating to write despite being a massively cracky AU that I could hardly take seriously when I started.  
> It also wasn't ever intended to have Hot Rod/Ultra Magnus as a pairing - it was going to be Hot Rod/Arcee, with the barest hints of Rodimus/Ultra Magnus undertones. And then things happened. Well, Hot Rod's not complaining.
> 
> Obviously, this is far from complete. These four scenes have brought just past The Lion King's title screen, if you can believe it. I have a few more scenes written up for it, most of them badly in need of reworking, but I was tired of not having posted any fic in months so I decided that this little bit could stand on its own until I manage to get more of it ready for posting.
> 
> Oh, and this is for raisedbymoogles. <3


End file.
